What it is: a blog, a forum , a little spring of knowledge, a resting place, a comfortable spot, a shelter.
Purpose: dissemination of art, poetry, literature, for life, for healing, for a balanced wellness, an approaching of the truth or truths of existence.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Reading from some World War II history

When I came back from my night class, my page from BBC on the Leningrad siege was still up. I read that, and then clicked on a link to a page of testimony by a British sailor or naval officer who travelled near the coast of Russia.

As I researched and wrote this, I was listening to both classical European music on NPR and news from a different NPR affiliate, KLCC, a college radio station in Eugene, Oregon. Also, I began playing backgammon, which I'm still doing almost an hour after I began the reading leading to this.

My wife has got me drinking and liking bush tea. She started brewing and drinking it after reading Alexander McCall Smith's novels about a womyn detective, Mma Precious Ramotswe, who sets up her agency in a town in Botswana. Had to come back and edit this ten or fifteen minutes later, after finding and reading some pages from the Mail & Guardian from either Zaire or South Africa.

You are the Gender Abolitionist type of feminist. This means that you
feel the best way to destroy patriarchal oppression is to rid ourselves
of misguided gender roles, and instead live in a society that does not
make such marked assumptions about gender differences. The Gender
Abolitionist is culturally radical, but rather conservative when it
comes to sexual liberation and politics. You have a strong sense of
human rights for all. In fact, you are actually a very moral person.
You don't see people in terms of gender and are thus very philosophical
in order to perceive the world in such a manner. You think people
shouldn't identify others in terms of gender. When most people see a
person, the first thing they think is "That person is a woman" or "That
person is a man", but they do NOT think "That person is a
short-fingernail". Most make someone's gender their IDENTITY, but
fingernail length would never be considered part of their identity. A
gender abolitionist would claim gender should be like fingernail
length--it shouldn't be part of someone's identity. By making gender a
part of identity, difference is emphasized and oppression is often
justified. Thus, gender shouldn't be regarded to such a large extent by
society. You are mostly concerned with seeing women become fully
equalized with men by eliminating gender roles, as these roles oppress
women.